The Alchemist

I just read The Alchmist, and loved it. It is a story about a young boy from Spain who decides to follow his dream, and ends up crossing continents, meeting amazing people, and learning about how the world works, who he is, and what his true purpose is. I kind of waffled about, not caring too much about reading it, even though it was highly recommended by some friends. However, once I read it, it quickly became one of my favorite novels of all time.

Here are a few deep quotes from it that were particularly meaningful to me:

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What's the world's greatest lie? It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate.

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And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

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When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.

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The alchemists spent years in their laboratories, observing the fire that purified the metals. They spent so much time close to the fire that gradually they gave up the vanities of the world. They discovered that the purification of the metals had led to a purification of themselves.

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"There is only one way to learn," the alchemist answered. "It's through action. Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.

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Every search begins with beginners luck and ends with the victor's being severely tested.

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Courage is the quality most essential to understanding the Language of the World.

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I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living now.

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People are afraid to pursue their most important dreams, because they feel that they don't deserve them, or that they'll be unable to achieve them.

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Martin Luther King Jr.

I ran across a video of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a Dream" speech on youtube today, and I have to say I never get tired of it. I am just amazed and awed at the strength and drive of the people in the Civil Rights Movement, in the face of such adversity.

The Five People You Meet in Heaven

I just finished reading Mitch Albom's The Five People You Meet in Heaven. It is a short read, and recounts the story of a man's death and one interpretation of what heaven will be like - a place where five people will meet you and explain the meaning behind your life. I read it while on vacation in Utah, and loved it.

A couple of my favorite quotes from the book:

"This is the greatest gift God can give you: to understand what happened in your life. To have it explained. It is the peace you have been searching for." (p. 35)

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"Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know." (p. 49)

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"All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhood completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair." (p. 104)

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"Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person who harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves." (p. 141)

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"Sometimes when you sacrifice something precious, you’re not really losing it. You’re just passing it on to someone else." (p. 94)

Brave New World

I just finished reading Brave New World, the great novel by Aldous Huxley. For those unacquainted, the book tells of a not-too-distant future where people are manufactured and conditioned from conception to take their place in society. A world government has absolute control over every aspect of society, including individual consumption, occupation, and even religion. I love dystopian stories like this because they allow the author to factor out selected variables in daily life, and explore the meaning behind those that he or she chooses (I hope that made sense). Brave New World does not disappoint - in the final chapters there pages upon pages of biting commentary on the purpose of life, the role of religion and government in society, and the hard choice between happiness and truth. I picked out a few of the more thought provoking sections, given below.

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"Well, duty's duty. One can't can't consult one's own preferences. I'm interested in truth, I like science. But truth's a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it's been beneficent. It has given us the stablest equilibrium in history."

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"What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled--after the Nine Years' war. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for truth, of course. But it's been very good for happiness. One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for."

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The Savage Interrupted him. "But isn't it natural to feel there's a God?"
"You might as well ask if it's natural to do up one's trousers with zippers," said the Controller sarcastically. "You remind me of another of those old fellows called Bradley. He defined philosophy as the finding of bad reason for what one believes by instinct. As if one believed anything by instinct! One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them. Finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons--that's philosophy. People believe in God because they have been conditioned to believe in God."
"But all the same," insisted the Savage, "it is natural to believe in God when you're alone--quite alone, in the night, thinking about death..."
"But people are never alone now," said Mustapha Mond. "We make them hate solitude; and we arrange their lives so that it's almost impossible for them ever to have it."

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"But God's the reason for everything noble and fine and heroic. If you had a God..."
"My dear young friend," said Mustapha Mond, "civilization has absolutely no need of nobility or heroism. These things are symptoms of political inefficiency. In a properly organized society like ours, nobody has any opportunities for being noble or heroic. Conditions have got to be thoroughly unstable before the occasion can arise. Where there are wars, where there are divided allegiances, where there are temptations to be resisted, objects of love to be fought for or defended--there obviously, nobility and heroism have some sense. But there aren't any wars nowadays. The greatest care is taken to prevent you from loving any one too much. There's no such thing as a divided allegiance you're so conditioned that you can't help doing what you ought to do. And what you ought to do is on the whole so pleasant, so many of the natural impulses are allowed free play, that there really aren't any temptations to resist.

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"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy"
"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."
"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen to-morrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind."
There was a long silence.
"I claim them all", said the Savage at last.
Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. "You're welcome," he said.

Kant's Definition of Enlightenment

I stumbled across this quote by Immanuel Kant which blew me away:

"Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is the incapacity to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. Such tutelage is self-imposed if its cause is not lack of intelligence, but rather a lack of determination and courage to use one's intelligence without being guided by another."

Without revealing anything too personal, I have been struggling to shed the views and indoctrination of my parents and other family members, and have found it very difficult, but at the same time, unfathomably satisfying and liberating. I feel I have the power to choose my own destiny and be my own person.